Show Us How to Grow
by Leia 96
Summary: Auggie can't remember the first time someone said he was ugly - or even hideous or monstrous. He's used to it, even if it makes his sister angry. But today, for the first time either of them can remember, Via's the one being called names and she's not handling it well; high school is hard and girls are mean. Oneshot. Rating's slightly generous, 2 instances of b****, otherwise fine.


**AN: So, I read a lot. I'm good at picking books that interest me, so I often read books I like. Plenty of times I read books I love, even. Then there are books like Harry Potter, that I consider to be on a very short list of the best books ever. These books change my life. And then there are books like **_**Wonder**_** that don't just change my life; they change me. It wasn't the best book ever, it wasn't my favorite book I've ever read, but **_**Wonder **_**made me want to be a kinder person and there's no greater accomplishment than that. On that note, I was sad to see only two stories in this category, and I did a project on how media makes girls feel about themselves and this idea sort of came to me. So enjoy, and I sincerely hope that if you haven't read **_**Wonder, **_**you do so, and if you have, you'll consider adding to this category on fanfiction. Apologies for the long note :)**

* * *

Via came home crying today. I could tell she was trying not to let anyone notice, but her eyes were kind of swollen and red, and she had this big, kind of scary looking smile, like if she smiled big enough no one would notice her eyes. Mom had made cookies and offered one to Via, but Via said no thanks in this super polite way that was not entirely normal for her, and then she went in her room and hasn't come out since.

When Via's door slammed, Mom and I shared this look that was more like an instant, silent conversation. It sort of was like "Did you see that? Yes I saw it. Am I crazy or was that weird? No, that was definitely weird," and then Mom went and knocked on Via's door, and Via shouted without opening it that she was kind of busy with homework so please don't bother her.

Sixth grade has been going a lot better than fifth grade. I mean, sixth grade is hard for everyone, but I've got Summer and Jack, and Amos and the two Maxes and Henry and Miles, and even the people who aren't really my friends are nice to me like the way they might be to anyone else. The only hard part was at the beginning of the year when the new fifth graders who didn't know me would bump into me in the hall and weren't used to my face. They'd kind of gasp, or start pointing and whispering to each other, or do the look away thing. But they got used to me, and it was really different from last year because no one said anything mean. They weren't just scared of my face, they were kind of scared of me, because I was a sixth grader. I was a big kid, higher on the food chain than they were, so they didn't tease me or anything.

When Dad gets home, Mom goes and whispers to him and they both glance in the direction of Via's door, and I know that she's telling him that Via's upset but that she hasn't told us why.

He goes and knocks on her door and asks if he can come in like Mom did, but she just tells him that she's kind of busy. He starts to open the door, and she shouts really loud "DAD I'M CHANGING!" I don't think she's really changing, but he super quickly closes the door before it's really open, and his face gets a little red.

"I don't think she wants to talk right now," he says.

I play Xbox for a while, and then Mom tells me that dinner is ready. I go and sit at the table, and there are only three places set. Mom and Dad are sitting across from me.

"Via's not hungry?" I ask. I suspect that she is actually very hungry since she hasn't had anything to eat since she got home, but Mom shakes her head.

"She's going to keep working on her homework," she says. We all know that's not why she's not eating with us, but we ignore this and carry on normal conversation throughout dinner.

I hang out at the dining room table and work on my own homework while Dad does dishes. After a little while, he sets a plate of food down in front of me.

"Hey, Auggie Doggie," he says, his hand on my shoulder. "Could you take this to your sister? I bet she's pretty hungry."

I nod and close my textbook, and then I get up with the plate and go to her room.

I'm not sure why Dad thinks Via will let me in if she wouldn't let him or Mom in, but I knock on the door anyway and tell her I've got her dinner and, to my surprise, she opens it for me.

Her face is a normal color again, but I can tell that she's still crying because her eyes are really big and shiny.

"Thanks, August," she says, taking the plate from me. Then she opens her door a little wider and steps back. "Come in."

* * *

I am a selfish person, and this is why I hide.

Girls are mean. This is a fact. High school is hard, and that is also a fact. But the most important fact in my life, what will always be the most important fact in my life, is that no matter how hard school is for me, it will always be harder for Auggie. No matter how mean people are to me, they will always be meaner to Auggie.

Therefore, I have no right to complain. Not in this family, not with my brother.

I set the plate he brings me on my nightstand and sit on my bed. I pat the space next to me, and he sits down beside me.

"That probably won't be very good if you let it get cold," he says, nodding toward my plate.

"I'm not really that hungry," I say. This, at least, is true.

For a split second, I want to tell him what happened today. I want to tell him because I can't just keep it inside of me, and even more than that, he would get it. He would understand, and maybe even have some advice. The moment passes, though. Of course I'm not going to tell him.

Here's what happened. It's the stupidest of things, really. Lizzie McDonald and I got in an argument, and I called her a bitch and she said I was ugly.

Every girl gets called fat or ugly at some point in her life (yes, this is another fact), and every girl wonders if it's true. Then she maybe starts wearing more make-up, or makes a point to start jogging. And then she tells her mom and dad, and they tell her that she's not fat and she's not ugly. And that's that.

Except of course that that's not that at all because even if what Lizzie said made me insecure about my kind of too small eyes and my kind of too big thighs, I've lived with Auggie long enough to understand how lucky I am. I could've been born with his face, but I wasn't. I have a nice, normal face and zero right to be insecure about it because of something some girl said in the heat of an argument.

I know all of this in my head, but I can't help but wonder if my cheekbones should be higher, if my eyes should be bigger, my lips fuller. This is what makes me a selfish human being.

"So you seemed kind of like maybe something happened today," Auggie says quietly. Even though I've always been nice to him, even when I'm in a crappy mood, he's acting like I might bite his head off.

And here I thought I was being discreet about how upset I was.

"It's not really a big deal," I say, grabbing the plate off the nightstand. I set it on my lap and begin tearing apart my bread roll with my fingers. Auggie gives me a look like he doesn't believe me.

"Is that why you pretended to be naked when Dad tried to come in and then wouldn't come out for dinner?"

Telling Dad I was changing had been kind of mean - plus the last thing I wanted was to be the girl who cried "naked" and one day have him come in when I actually _was _changing. It had just kind of come out without my having time to think it through.

"That wasn't very smart, was it," I say, smiling a little. Auggie laughs, seeming to be glad that he now has my permission to think it's funny.

"It was kind of funny though." He snorts a little. "You should have seen his face!" I ruffle his hair with my hand and he looks up at me. "And actually, it was kind of genius." He laughs again.

We both get quiet, and I'm embarrassed to see him brushing bread crumbs from the roll I've been ripping up off his pants.

After a moment, he asks me, "So what happened that made you sad."

I really, really want to tell him.

He's grown up so much the past year or so. He's not just my little brother anymore; he's also my best friend now. Of course there are some things I know not to tell him, but most things I really want to. He doesn't act like a little kid anymore, and over the past year I've had to learn to stop treating him like one.

He's long since accepted what his face looks like. It's not changing anytime soon, and some part of me knows that even though I don't look like Auggie, I'm still allowed to hurt if I'm insulted.

But the main reason I tell him is not because he can't be treated like a little kid anymore, or because I know he's come to terms with his face; it's because I want to. It's because he looks at me with those eyes - those slightly too low, downward slanted Auggie eyes that have been in his face the entire 12 years I've known him - and I believe that he _wants_ to hear what happened at school. I believe that I will feel better if I tell him.

I believe that even though I'm four years older, even though he's dealt with so much more than I will ever have to, we're equals. In just one instant, I know I'm going to tell him what happened.

"It was the stupidest thing," I begin, for I really believe that. It was an extreme reaction to a heat-of-the-moment, superficial insult. Auggie is paying close attention, listening. "I got in an argument with a girl in my chemistry class. We... said some not very nice things to each other." His face hasn't changed. He's just listening. I continue. "Finally I called her a bitch and a slut," I glance at him, knowing Mom would throw a fit if she heard me saying those words in front of him, but it's not like he's never heard them before, "and she..." I give Auggie one final glance before I come out and say. I'm terrified of how he will react. "She said that I wasn't very pretty. In fact, she used the word 'ugly.' 'Fat' may have also crossed her lips." I watch Auggie, waiting for him to say something. Finally, he quirks his head to the side, looking confused.

* * *

Ugly? Via? They're two words I've never associated with each other. If anyone in this family's ugly it's me.

And then I know why that girl must've said that: because I'm Via's brother.

"Because of me?" I ask Via quietly. I don't mind, I'm used to it. It makes me angry, though, that the girl said those things about Via, not about me. When people talk about me, Via gets angry. Via doesn't even look like me, though; there's no reason to talk about her and make her sad.

"No," Via says, with a quiet laugh. "Lizzie's never even seen you. She just said it."

My mouth falls open.

"Don't be upset, please," she says. I'm confused. Hurriedly, I close my mouth.

"Why would I be upset? Well, I mean, except at that girl." Via gives me a little look.

"Look, I know that, between the two of us, I got luckier in the, um... face lottery," she says. "I know that I'm lucky to have the face I have - "

"You are," I add. "You're really pretty. That girl lied." Via gives me a funny look. "What were you saying?"

She takes a breath and says, "I'm sorry." Now I'm really confused.

"For?" I prompt after a moment.

"There was a fifty percent chance I could've been born with your face and you could've been born..." she trails off.

"Normal?" I suggest. "Ruggedly handsome?" She chuckles quietly.

"Normal," she says. "But I wasn't born with your face, and so you were. And I don't know if I've ever apologized for that."

I can't really think of any reason that she of all people needs to be apologizing to me for my face belonging to, well me, but I kind of nod and say "It's fine," and she seems relieved.

We sit quietly for a while. She's finished tearing up her bread roll and has moved on to poking her meatloaf while I rip the leafy parts off the broccoli with my fingers and gnaw on the stalks after scattering the leafy bits all over her plate. She doesn't seem to care, probably because she's not even really eating.

After a couple of minutes I turn to her. "You're allowed to have problems and stuff, you know," I say. She looks confused, and I clarify. "You're really pretty, and I know I'm not, but no matter what you look like it hurts when people say mean things to you. Or about you."

She looks stumped for a moment, but then she seems to gather her thoughts.

"That means a lot to me, Auggie. It really does. But we can't pretend it's the same thing when someone talks about me being ugly and someone... teases you about the way you look. I know that, I understand that."

I look at her face. Her perfectly normal, really pretty face. The face Jack called "hot" (eww) when he first met her.

"Even when it's not true," I say, "it can still hurt the same. And if you're not expecting it, it hurts worse." I grab her plate full of shredded, destroyed food that she's clearly not going to eat right now. I stand up and head toward the door.

"When did you get so smart?" Via asks, laying back on her bed. "A year ago you would've been assigning us all _Star Wars_ characters in order to get your point across."

"Would that help you understand?" I ask seriously and she laughs.

"God, no," she says. I'm standing in the doorway, about to close the door, when I hear her.

"Hey, Auggie," she says. I turn around and look at her. "No one's mean to you at school anymore, right?" I nod. "Good. You let me know if any of that starts again, okay?" I nod again and she seems done, so I turn to go.

"Hey, Auggie," she says again. I turn around and she gestures toward the door. "Why don't you bring that chocolate chip ice cream and a couple of spoons for us to share?" She's smiling, and when I see that smile, I know she's over the hurtful insult, over the unwarranted guilt, and back to herself again. I smile back.

"Carton or bowl?" I ask.

"Who do you think you're talking to? Carton, dude, always carton."

Yes, Via's back to herself again.

That is a fact.


End file.
